The ninth volume of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga topped the chart of the Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels in the book channel, based on NPD BookScan data for October (9/30/18-10/27/18) provided to ICv2. Saga muscled out volume 15 of My Hero Academia, which also came out in October; usually the latest volume of that series takes the top spot in its debut month. Volume 8 of Saga came out in January 2018 and spent five months on the charts, so the series has legs; this was the first month that volume 9 was available in bookstores (see "September 2018 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels").

The number three title is Anthony Bourdain’s Hungry Ghosts, collecting the four issues of the comic that the late chef and television host co-wrote with Joel Rose (his collaborator on Get Jiro), and with art by Alberto Ponticelli, Irene Koh, Paul Pope, and others. The book includes recipes and extras and may be attracting non-comics-readers who are fans of Bourdain, who committed suicide earlier this year.

The only superhero comic on this very mixed Top 20 is Sean Murphy's Batman: White Knight, the first trade released under DC Comics' Black Label imprint and a story that’s far outside the standard Batman continuity.

The Top 20 includes 12 volumes of manga, all from VIZ Media; one superhero comic, as noted above; and eight other graphic novels, from a variety of publishers and in a variety of genres: Volume 9 of Saga, two volumes of The Walking Dead, the Anthony Bourdain book, the unstoppable gamer comic The Adventure Zone, and two books that could probably also be classed as Young Adult, Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Novel and Sheets.

NPD BookScan collects weekly point-of-sale data on print books from over 16,000 locations including e-tailers, chains, mass merchandisers, independent bookstores, and more. NPD BookScan covers approximately 85% of the U.S. trade print book market. The ranks on this chart are based on piece sales. Some publishers classify titles that are primarily text, or art books, as graphic novels; we've removed those titles from the ranking above.